


stronger than anyone I know

by cinderlily



Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: 5 Times, Angst with Fluff ending, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 04:51:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10757073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinderlily/pseuds/cinderlily
Summary: Five Times Ginny Baker thought it might be Love and the one time it really was.





	stronger than anyone I know

**Lucas Brennan**

She was eight when she first met Lucas. He was nine and a half, _almost ten_ and had a really nice smile that went along with his ability to play ball like a beast. He was the shortstop of the team that played just before hers and though she always told her dad that she wanted to be there early to practice she really wanted to be there to see him play shortstop. 

He talked to her, once, when he had to put ice his arm after a ball hit it really hard. She was seated, waiting for her game to start, and he seemed to know who she was even before he moved to sit down next to her. 

“You’re that pitcher, right?” 

She blushed and kicked her feet at the dirt. “Ginny. You’re a really good shortstop.” 

“Not that good,” he said ruefully, holding up his arm with the ice pack. 

“Everyone gets hurt, but you’re getting back up was what mattered,” she said, saying the same thing her dad said to her about a thousand times a week. She put a hand out and touched the ice pack. “Plus, that was a good save.” 

He smiled at her and her stomach flipped. She was pretty sure he had the best smile she’d seen ever. And that counted all the boys she’d seen in those movies her mom took her to. 

“Maybe next year we’ll be on the same team,” she said, hopeful and eager to keep the conversation going. 

He made a face at her like she was crazy. “You think you’ll still play next year?”

She blinked at him. “Yeah. Of course. I’m going into the majors.” 

“There’s no majors for girls,” Lucas said. 

“There is majors for _me_ ,” she said. 

Lucas rolled his eyes. “No way. You have to be a boy to play baseball.” 

“Why’s that?” 

“Because it’s a sport for guys. Maybe you could play softball, or basketball. You’re tall enough I guess. Baseball takes grit, not _tiaras_.” 

By the time her dad got to her she’d punched him in the eye, _hard_ and almost punched him in his stupid smile too. She wasn’t just some girl. She was Ginny Baker, and she didn’t need a stupid boy to tell her what to do.

She told her dad she wanted to do extra practice at home from then on, without any _distractions_. He was okay with that. Thankfully. 

**Brian Friedman**

At thirteen she was, obviously, not okay with the fact that she was totally the only girl her age who didn’t have a boyfriend. Okay. Other girls didn’t have boyfriends, but she was already a little awkward and socially outcast, not having a boyfriend made her feel like she had a neon sign over her head that read ‘FREAK’. 

So when Brian sat next to her in her Humanities class she was a little startled but okay with it in the long run. He was a little awkward too, he liked to read and he played D & D games with a group of other guys in the 8th grade. Not that she really knew what D & D entailed but apparently it wasn’t _cool_. Which she got. Being a girl who played baseball wasn’t apparently socially acceptable. People were stupid. 

Brian was funny. He had this dry sense of humor that at first she didn’t actually get a lot of, she kind of thought he was being serious but then when it clicked over that he was being sarcastic it took a lot of strength not to laugh at his side comments on the stories they were reading. 

They sometimes passed notes back and forth. He would draw pictures of people in the class, exaggerated and maybe a touch mean but really good. She told him as much and he blushed and said he thought he might be a comic book artist when he grew up. When she told him she’d been the MLB he didn’t laugh or tell her it was impossible. 

She liked him a lot. 

When he asked if she wanted to go to a movie she had to look at the calendar she kept, game days and practice days highlighted in pink and yellow respectively. He made a joke that she seemed pretty popular, she didn’t respond that it was actually her lack of popularity. They found a day that worked for both of them and she wrote it down carefully. 

“Brian- MOVIES” with his number underneath it. 

It wasn’t until she got home that night that she realized he might have just asked her on a _date_ and that that might be a big deal. She lied through her teeth to her parents and said that it was just a group of people going to see a movie. Which was half true. One of Brian’s friends brought his girlfriend with him, so technically they weren’t by themselves or anything. 

She couldn’t remember the name of the movie because right before the movie started he slipped his hand into hers and she was pretty much distracted the whole time. He leaned in a couple of times to make jokes and she laughed, getting shushed by those around them. 

Before her mom showed up to get her, he kissed her on the cheek and smiled. She thought that her heart might actually burst in her chest and when she got in the car she told her mom everything, even though it risked her getting into total trouble. Instead her mom laughed and said she had her suspicions, asked for all the details and said she had to meet this boy, but they didn’t have to tell her dad. 

Except, two days later Brian told her that he couldn’t date her because his friends said that dating a girl who played sports made him the girl in the relationship. Which didn’t make sense, _she_ was the girl and how the hell did her baseball matter at all? 

She cried in the bathroom for long enough that she went to the nurse’s office and her mom picked her up. They went and got ice cream and never ever told her dad about it. The ice cream or the boy. 

**Jordan Collins**

Jordan was kind of like a brother to her for a while, except when she really thought about it. Except when, sometimes, he’d look at her in the dug out and give her the kind of wink that was something only the two of them shared. When he was the one to give her the courage when she was feeling the pressure from all sides. 

He had the habit of showing up just when she needed him to, and she had joked once he was her Knight in Shining Cleats. He’d said he shined them especially for her. 

They’d made out exactly one times. They were supposedly trying out their hitting at the batting cages, on a Friday night. She put in a dollar and tried to take the best swing, making contact but barely making it got to the net they put out for kids. It wasn’t quite her strong suit. 

He came in and put his helmet on, putting his arms on her shoulder and telling her to not arch her back so hard. He stood in the back of the cages, dangerous as hell with the bat in her hands, and told her to take the next one and imagine it was her dad telling her that she couldn’t see a movie. 

She’d made contact again and instead it made it about two feet further. He laughed. 

“Pitiful, Baker,” he said. “Try Mr. Hanson telling us we have to write about Skinner’s stupid pigeons again…” 

Man she hated those stupid pigeons, not to mention the jokes that Mr. Hanson thought were HI-LARIOUS about if they could teach a pigeon to seek pleasure and avoid pain they could teach them to do their homework well enough. She pulled back, saw the ball and ripped forward, hitting it so hard it hit the very back of the cages, making a loud thunk. 

The group of college looking guys a few down had turned in surprise, but clapped and whooped and told her to do it again. Which she did, twice. It wasn’t quite the Green Monster, but in that moment it might as well have been. 

He hadn’t even taken his turn, instead stole her away to the small restaurant inside for a celebratory ice cream. They took it to the truck that her dad let her borrow for the night and ate it in the front seat, stealing tastes of each other’s flavors. 

She’d smiled and laughed and didn’t quite know why she couldn’t stop the giggles that kept coming up at his dumb jokes until he was literally pushing his lips up against hers. She almost dropped her cup of strawberry ice cream but when he looked at her guiltily she put it on the dash and took his to put it on the dash as well. 

When she kissed him she wasn’t as gentle as he was, she put her hands on either side of his face and pressed her lips to his. She let her hands loosen and snake around his shoulders and he made happy noises into her mouth. It was awkward and weird and amazing and she remembered feeling purely happy listening to silly pop songs on the radio and making out with this boy. 

Until the security guard knocked on the door and reminded them that they were at a family establishment and they might want to take it someplace else. 

They’d laughed the whole way home, not talking about the kiss but instead singing along to Katy Perry and P!nk and blushing whenever either one caught each other’s eyes. 

Less than a week later everything went to shit. She still couldn’t eat strawberry ice-cream without feeling just a little sick to her stomach. 

**Trevor Davis**

The story of her and Trevor was so cliche and horrible that sometimes she wondered if she lived it or watched it on a bad soap opera. When they started it had been like the both of them had never felt skin before, constantly touch starved when they were around each other and able to touch. Even if people were around Trevor would find a way to press his leg to hers, his hand at the base of her spine. 

He made her feel like a grown woman in a way she never thought she would. She breathed in his skin and felt like she was meant to be with him and only him. By the time she sent the ‘racy’ pictures that would one day haunt her, it was like a new person all together had sent them. Ginny Baker who lived for only baseball was gone. 

She was in _love_. Or so she thought. It was what love was always described to her as. Warm and exciting, fast heart beat. Butterflies in her stomach. 

Which made the break up all the more horrible. It wasn’t just the let down from Trevor. A part of her told her to be happy for him, that he got to play the sport that he loved, like she did. But she had put her trust in him, had put her trust in herself to give him her heart. She’d _broken her rules_ for him. 

Everything went to shit for a long time after that. She returned to her robot roots. Eat, drink, breathe, play, sleep. Lather, rinse, repeat. She wasn’t going to let herself be lied to again. Not if she was going to move forward and be the best that she was going to be. 

**Noah Casey**

When Noah came to visit her in the hospital, she knew. She saw it in his eyes when he looked at her. Relief. She was now available, his to bring to events and to follow his success. To go on a trip around the world at the drop of a dime. 

Where she needed someone to talk to, to hold her hand and tell her stupid stories that distracted her while her life fell around her, he wanted her to be better. To fix herself so they could go on _his_ adventures.

She had horrifying images of never healing, of being put in pretty dresses and following at his side. It wasn’t his fault, not really, he was married to his job just like she was married to hers. She just couldn’t help but feel like she was expected to respect his marriage more than he was expected to respect hers. 

He’d left the hospital still holding the flowers in her hands and she’d cried only a little before she was able to fall asleep and come back to herself the next morning. 

The personal trainer came in and fought with her but in the best way possible and she knew she made the right decision a few months later when she made her second season start on the mound. She saw that Noah had met another tech guru. She was happy for him. 

+1 

**Mike Lawson**

There were two long years where she and Mike were friends. Just friends. They had had that one night before the not-Chicago. There was also a moment on New Year’s Eve which they didn’t talk about because it was stupid and childish and pretty much Ginny throwing herself at Mike in a moment where she wasn’t at her best.

But then Mike retired. 

There was an entire year tour, not unlike Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera. She teased him the whole season about it being like the rest of the team didn’t even exist. She came up with ‘Laws-on and on’ this time, which he conceded was better than Mike O Mania. 

They spent his last year together a lot. Well, more than their usual, which was already a lot. They played cards in his room, they went to bars and she dragged him bodily on the dance floor. 

On the field they kicked ass and took names. They won the NL West in a landslide, making it to the world series for the first time in so long they were the underdog story. Everybody loves an underdog story. That didn’t get them the ring.

Yet when Mike walked up to the microphone to formally retire it was like they had won the ring finally. He smiled and he laughed, he answered questions that might have been brushed aside before. He thanked the media, _the media_ , for being there his entire career. He was everything that was wanted from him and more. 

Ginny might have been in the wings with tears in her eyes for most of it. Not that she would tell Mike. Ever. 

That night some of the guys ‘stole’ him for a beer or two which turned out to be a huge party in his honor. Mike, with all his bad acting in the past, pulled off a surprised face quite well. He hugged all the wives who had organized it, double hugging Evelyn whose restaurant was catering it. 

And he’d looked Ginny up and down with a small secretive smile. He had barely had a shot and was nursing a drink, but he put his drink down on a nearby table and offered his hand to her instead. He nodded towards the dance floor, which was nearly empty, and raised and eyebrow. 

“Don’t fail me now, Baker,” he said above the din of the room. 

She was used to fast dancing with him, bopping around and looking like idiots whenever she could manage to keep him on the floor longer than thirty seconds so she was half shocked when he slipped his arm around her back and pulled her close. He took her free hand into hers and, with very few people around them and most people looking on, started to do a simple waltz. She could feel him count the 1-2-3 with one finger on her upper arm.

“You been holding out on me, Old Man?” 

He shrugged. “I said I didn’t dance, or whatever it is you do on the dance floor. But I did like to dance with my mom occasionally, when she was… having good days.” 

She didn’t probe that painful part any further. She’d learned long ago that whatever she learned about Mike’s past was his to give and was almost always given in small drops of knowledge. 

“Is this what you’re going to do with your free time? Dancing lessons. You could teach at a summer camp,” she chided. “Change your name to Johnny.” 

He half glared at her, turning her in circle before bringing her back in. “Does that make you Baby?” 

“Just got to find me a watermelon,” she winked. His smile seemed to break a little wider. There was nothing she could think to say, really. She had known for a full year this day, this moment, was coming and yet she felt like it was hitting her like a Mac Truck. 

They danced around the small floor, a few more couples joining in, not that it mattered. It was just them, to her at very least, she was going to revel in the moment. One song dripped into another, and the DJ hadn’t really started just yet, so it was a mix of sappy old tunes mostly from the rat pack. They didn’t break eye contact, even as she felt herself go flush. 

“Ginny,” he said, soft and simple. 

She waited a second, but he wasn’t saying anything. “Mike…” 

“I’m not a player anymore.” 

She laughed. “That’s the point of retirement, Mike. Well, that and the gold watch.” 

“Not… not just that, and you know it.” 

She did. She tilted her head forward, ostensibly to stare at her feet while they moved along to the music. She looked up and smiled at him. “So what does that mean?” 

“Well, I’m hoping for a date,” he laughed. “Maybe coffee, or dinner and a movie.” 

She tilted her head. “Woah there, Lawson, dinner AND a movie. You think you can afford that?” 

“I think I can probably swing it, for the right girl,” he said and suddenly she realized that what had started as a dance was now just the two of them plastered together swaying in small circles in the center of the dance floor. 

“The right girl?” 

He smiled. “Yep. You know. The kind of girl who drives me up the freaking wall, but who makes me laugh. Who listens to me when I need to talk, but who will make me listen when I need to do that, too. The one who could deal with my moodiness. The one who could truly teach me about cilantro….” 

She smacked his arm. “It’s soap, Mike Lawson and you know it.” 

“I know, I know,” he laughed. “See? You already taught me things. Maybe a girl about your height, your smile, your laugh…” 

She put a hand up to his fuzzy beard and ran her fingers through it. “Is that so?” 

“Of course, she’d have to like baseball.” 

Ginny sharply inhaled through clenched teeth. “Might be a stumbling block there, Mikey.” 

“Don’t call me Mikey,” he rolled his eyes. “Think that girl might say yes if I ask her?” 

“Well, you’d have to ask her first,” Ginny said and even though she was aware of the fact that she was in a room with every single person she worked with, she moved a little closer to him. 

“Where’s Evelyn?” he teased, but he didn’t even move to sell the lie. She pinched his arm lightly. He winked at her. “What do you say Baker? Want to go out with this Old Man?” 

She answered by giving him a small peck to the corner of his lips. All around them people made whoops and hollers and she pulled back to look with a frown. Mike, pretended to bow. 

“You didn’t say yes,” he pointed out, still smiling at the crowd. 

“Yes,” she responded, her head on his shoulder. 

He kissed her again and she felt her toes curl. 

The next season was weird to not have his presence in the locker room, but he was in the family box for almost every game he wasn’t calling and he was always waiting for her at home.

And at the movies he always let her get a second box of Dots, citing that she was more than just the right girl.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you LuciFern for the beta. <3 
> 
> I have a lot of feelings about the life and times of Ms. Ginny Baker (#RenewPitch) but I might have messed with a few details. Still, life moves forward.


End file.
